Brett 2
“What are you doing here?” my mother asks Jeremy, who is seated at the kitchen table, chair leaned all the way back, propped against the wall. Add to that the faded jeans, Northwestern sweatshirt and Chuck Taylors and suddenly I’m seeing him as a fifteen-year-old again. There’s an open beer bottle in front of him and a shit-eating grin on his face.
“Hi, Mom! Nice to see you, too!” he quips sarcastically.
“I locked the door when we left. How did you get in?” she asks, ignoring his tone and his comment.
“Oh, please, Mother. Like it was hard? You’ve kept your spare key under the same flowerpot for the last thirty years. You should find another hiding spot for that, you know? Especially now that Dad is gone. No telling who might let themselves in!”
My mother takes her jacket off, opens the door to the pantry and hangs it on a hook inside. When she closes it, she walks across the wide-plank wood floor to the old gas stove, which she lights under her copper kettle. She pulls a mug from the glass-front cupboard and starts to prepare her cup of tea, ignoring my brother as she goes. Jeremy and I look at one another for a long moment.
I don’t think we’ve exchanged more than three words since I moved out of the apartment while he was out of town. After Maggie came into my life, I found I had precious little tolerance for my brother and his bullshit. And then, to catch him stalking Julia …threatening her and her unborn child …I knew I couldn’t spend another night under the same roof as him. That seems like an eternity ago now, but I can tell he’s having exactly the same recollections I am.
The kettle is boiling, and my mother pours the water into her mug. She looks at Maggie and I, who are still standing, gawking.
“I’m sorry, did either of you want a cup?” she offers over her shoulder. We both shake our heads no.
“I’d love a cup, Mom,” Jeremy pipes up from the round oak table where we had countless meals over the years. I can’t help but notice he’s sitting in my father’s chair.
“You won’t be staying long enough to have a cup, Jeremy,” she replies without so much as a glance in his direction.
He laughs. “Subtle, Mom! What happened to your perfect manners?”
Now she’s putting two sugar cubes in the tea and stirring. The spell finally broken, I move from the spot where I’ve been rooted, and pull the container of milk out of the fridge for her.
“Here,” I say, setting it on the counter next to her.
“Thank you, Son.”
“Yes, thank you, Son,” Jeremy mimics her with extra emphasis on the last word.
“You know, I think I’m going to go upstairs for a bit …” Maggie starts to excuse herself, but I take her forearm gently before she can go.
“No, please. I want you here.”
She nods, and is the first one to join my brother at the kitchen table. I am in awe of this woman. She knows what he is capable of. And yet, here she is, sitting down with him, trying to keep the peace between all of us. Or, at least I think that’s what she’s doing.
“Well, well, Margaret, how’ve you been?” Jeremy smirks and I want to slap it off his face.
“I was doing fine until you showed up,” she informs him curtly. Okay. Maybe she’s not on a peacekeeping mission after all.
Jeremy just shakes his head, irritating smile still affixed to his face. My mother takes her tea and joins them at the table. I lean on the butcher block countertop, opting to stay on my feet. God only knows what’s going to happen next, and I want to be prepared to move in any direction necessary.
“What do you want, Jeremy?” Mom asks in a tone that leaves absolutely no room for small talk.
Now his lips turn down into an exaggerated frown. Like a fucking sad clown face.
“It’s at times like these when we all need to pull together. We’re family, after all. I just wanted to be here to help in any way I can. You know, funeral plans, distribution of assets …”
“No, thank you, Jeremy. I have all of that covered,” she tells him as she stirs her tea.
“Well, great! So, when’s the funeral? And, more importantly, when do I get my share of the money?”
“What money is that?” my mother wonders, a perplexed expression on her face.
Oh, she is good. Jeremy switches up his own features again, this time trying on his best condescending look.
“Poor, poor Mother. You’re distraught, aren’t you? You know, I’d be happy to handle the estate for you. Who has the will? Ralph Fourquet? Why don’t I just give him a call …” he offers, reaching for the old curly-corded phone on the wall.
Mom reaches up to tuck a stray bit of grayish brown hair behind her ear. She looks tired …no, resigned. It makes me wonder if she expected to find my brother here waiting for us. I notice her hands are as steady as a surgeon’s as she sips her tea. When she takes the mug from her lips, her eyebrows knit together and she wags a pink-nailed finger at him dismissively.
“No need. We’re just back from his office. It’s all taken care of, so I suppose you should just be on your way.”
I see his smile slip a little, his eyes cloud over slightly.
“Okay. Will he be mailing me my check then?”
“What check is that, Jeremy?”
The last of his smile is gone now.
“Don’t play around with me, Mother. I’d like to know what to expect as my share of the inheritance.”
“You don’t have a share of the inheritance,” she replies, not even bothering to look at him as she swirls the tea in her mug.
Jeremy draws a long breath, as if he is willing himself to stay calm. Christ, this is getting worse by the second. I don’t know what is going on between the two of them exactly, but Maggie and I are looking back and forth from one to the other, as if we were watching a match at Wimbledon.
It’s Jeremy’s serve next.
“I’m not going to say it again, Mom, don’t play with me. I know I’m in the will, and I expect you to honor that. To honor Dad’s wishes.”
She lobs it back over the net to him.
“No. You’re not in the will, actually. I don’t know why you’d think that was the case.”
“Because I’ve seen the goddamn thing,” he spits, a little too loudly.
That’s a deduction for unsportsmanlike conduct right there.
“Oh!” Mom exclaims, as if something has just occurred to her. “You must have been snooping around in your father’s office. No, Jeremy, that’s an old will. Your father and I had Ralph draw up a new one last year. I think it was right after your last visit here. You know, the time when you tried to break my arm, and your father had to get his rifle out?”
“What?”
The single word that comes out of my mouth is, all at once, a question, a statement and a threat. Four little letters convey to my brother that I had better damned well have misheard or misunderstood what our mother has just said.
“Oh, please,” he snarls with disgust. “The bitch was asking for it. I just came here to ask them, very politely, to stay out of our business.”
I can’t believe what I’m hearing.
“Whose business?” I hiss. “And when, exactly, did this all happen?”
“Our business,” he asserts, gesturing between him and me. “Yours and mine. It was when they wanted you to move out of the apartment. I didn’t want them getting in the way of what I saw as a mutually beneficial living arrangement between two brothers. But she got her panties in a twist, and Dad overreacted, as usual.”
Holy. Fucking. Shit.
“He threatened me,” Mom interjects mildly, as if she is correcting him on some small, insignificant point. “I slapped him and he threatened me again. I told him to get out. He twisted my arm and tried to break it. That’s when your father pulled the gun out of the pantry. It was the only way he could get Jeremy to leave the house.”
“Are you fucking kidding me?" I roar from across the table. It’s not immediately clear to me which one of them I’m more pissed at: him for doing it, or her for not telling me he did it.
“We had it well under control, and didn’t want to bother you with it,” Mom continues, reading my thoughts.
I’m dumbfounded, looking from one to the other incredulously. “So now you understand why we changed the will.”
I close my eyes and shake my head a little, as if to shake this conversation out of my head, but it’s not budging. I can feel my blood pressure start to climb. My jaw is clenched and I’m breathing heavily through my nose. Any second now I’m going to blow smoke out of my ears like some cartoon character. Maggie sees where this is going and pats the empty chair next to her.
“Come and sit down,” she encourages, raising her eyebrows and nodding at me.
They’re all watching with silent interest as I make my way around the table slowly, glaring at my brother as I do.
“I don’t see how you could possibly think that your father would even consider giving you a share of his business after that,” Mom throws at him after I’m seated.
Jeremy sits up and leans forward toward me, suddenly more interested. One of his dark brows perks up and I’d swear his hazel eyes are gleaming with excitement now.
“Is that what it is?” he murmurs softly to me. “He left you the garage?”
“Money. From the sale of the garage,” Mom corrects.
Jeremy looks at her briefly with half a smile. She just swishes her tea around the cup and takes another sip.
“How much?” he demands.
“None of your business …” I start to say, but my mother cuts in before I can finish.
“Close to a million dollars, Jeremy.”
Fuck! She is determined to rub this shit in his face. And she’s doing a great job of it. Jeremy looks as if he’d like to eviscerate me with his eyes.
“Yeah, I’ll be wanting my share of that,” he informs me.
Shit. This is bad. I close my eyes again, forcing myself to calm down. What happens in the next few minutes is going to determine my fucked-up brother’s state of mind for the next few years. Decades, maybe. I swallow my anger and my pride in favor of the path of least resistance. And least violence.
“Mom, really, I don’t need it all …” I sigh with resignation.
“Brett, let me be clear,” she warns me sharply. “Ralph didn’t mention it, but there is a clause in the will. If you give a single penny of that money to Jeremy, it will all be rescinded and donated to the Humane Society.”
“You can’t do that,” Jeremy snarls.
“I can. And I did.”
“Mom, please, be reasonable,” I implore, putting a hand on her forearm.
Of course I don’t want to give this asshole a nickel, but I know full well the shit storm that’s about to rain down on us if he doesn’t get his way. I can count the number of Jeremy-centric ‘discussions’ we’ve had sitting in this kitchen over the years, but I can’t recall a single one as volatile as the one that seems to be unfolding right now.
Jeremy looks pleased, believing this to be settled to his satisfaction. The expression doesn’t last for long once my mother opens her mouth again.
“Tell him,” she demands, glaring at my brother.
“Tell him what?” he asks slowly; suspiciously.
“Tell him why you’re here. Tell him how you knew your father died,” she demands. “No one here called you. The obituary hasn’t been in the paper yet, or even online. Tell him, Jeremy.”
My brother is looking a little less pleased than he was just a few seconds ago.
“I don’t know what you’re talking about,” says his mouth, but his expression tells a different story.
Mom raises a challenging eyebrow.
Now, this is an interesting question. And one that I hadn’t considered myself. How did Jeremy find out? Now, we are all three of us staring at my brother, who can barely keep a straight face.
“Oh, alright, alright,” he concedes, rolling his eyes as if he’s a naughty child caught in a fib. “I came into town a few days ago. I wanted to catch Dad by himself so we could talk. Like Mom said, things didn’t end so well last time I was here, and I wanted to try and rectify that. So, I went to the garage … and that’s when I found him like that.”
“If that’s true, then why wouldn’t you say anything? Call the police? An ambulance?” I demand.
Jeremy looks at me with irritated exasperation, as if I am too stupid to live. “Because of this, right here,” he gestures at us sitting around the table. “This fucking inquisition. Who was going to believe I didn’t have something to do with it? Besides, he was dead when I got there.”
“Was he?” Mom challenges.
I can see it all on his face – the slight arch to one of his eyebrows, the thoughtful scrunch of his nose and the way his gaze moves, unblinking, across my mother’s features. I’m not sure anyone else would recognize it for what it is … Jeremy’s searching for clues.
Does my mother really know something … or is she bluffing? After a long, tense moment, he decides on the latter.
“Absolutely,” he declares with confidence. “There was nothing that could be done, so I just left. I knew someone would find him soon enough.”
“Huh,” Mom seems to consider this.
I wouldn’t have thought it possible, but there is a palpable shift in the air. Suddenly, the kitchen is a little colder, a little darker. And a lot quieter as Mom takes her time before speaking again. We wait. We watch until, finally, it comes.
“You know, Jeremy, I don’t think we ever told you that we had security cameras installed in Dad’s garage a few years back.”
His eyes narrow and he purses his mouth. That, in and of itself, tells me my world is about to explode.
“So, I went back over the tapes with the Police Chief,” Mom continues. “We know that you didn’t kill your father, but we also know that you were the one who got him so upset that he had the heart attack in the first place. And then, to make matters worse, you stood there and waited for him to die. You didn’t lift a finger to call for help. In fact, quite the opposite. On the tape, you are quite clearly taunting him as he’s writhing on the floor.”
“You. Didn’t.” My voice is a caustic whisper. “For God’s sake, Jeremy, tell me you didn’t do that!”
“Oh, he did it alright, Brett, I have the video footage to prove it.”
“You sure you wanna go there, Mom?” he whispers as he leans in and puts a hand on her wrist. “I’d hate for you to open up a can of worms you can’t close …”
My mother, pulls her hand out from under his and offers up a small, bittersweet smile. “Oh, Jeremy. If only I’d opened up that can a little sooner … your father might still be alive today. That will be the greatest regret of my life. That, and giving birth to you.”
In an instant, all the air seems to have been sucked out of the room. I can’t believe she’s said it and, judging by the way he’s shaking his head, he can’t believe he’s heard it.
“Wow. That was harsh, Mom. I didn’t know you had it in you,” he begins, sitting back again and draping an arm over the chair casually. “Oh, but wait … maybe I did. I mean, I have half your DNA, don’t I? Mom?”
I watch in stunned silence, waiting for her response. And when it comes, it’s most certainly not what I am expecting.
“You do, Jeremy. And, believe it or not, that means I know you better than you know yourself. So, go ahead, Son, tell me again how you had nothing to do with your father’s death. Tell me, Jeremy.”
Holy. Shit.
My brother doesn’t bat an eyelash. In fact, he looks quite pleased with himself when he speaks again.
“Okay,” he acknowledges, lifting his palms in surrender. “Okay, fine, I did it. But you can’t touch me, Mom. I didn’t commit any crime.”
While I may be without words at this moment, Maggie, on the other hand, is not.
“You are unbelievable,” she hisses at him in a rare moment of lost composure. “You think you can let your father die like that, in front of you, and then show up here looking for a share of the inheritance? You fucking sociopath! You’re more delusional than even I thought possible!” She jumps to her feet and leans across the table toward him. “I think it’s time you left. There are people grieving in this house and clearly, you are not one of them.”
Jeremy isn’t amused.
“I suggest you mind your own fucking business, Margaret, or next time it might be …”
“What?” She jumps in with the challenge before he can finish his thought. Before he can finish his threat. “Next time it might be me on the ground dying while you stand over me watching? I’d like to see you try it, asshole!”
Oh. This is not good. Not good at all. A steady tide of crimson is rising up her long, lean neck and her hands are balled up into tight fists.
“Maggie ...” I start, but she ignores me, turning to my mother.
“Trudy, with your permission, I’m going to call the police now.”
My mother shakes her head. At first I think she means Maggie shouldn’t call. But I’m mistaken.
“No, I don’t have a problem with that. The phone is on the wall over there, honey,” she directs her.
As she stands up, Jeremy grabs her wrist.
“I wouldn’t make that call if I were you,” he threatens.
But, in a split second he has no choice but to release her, because I’m dragging him across the kitchen table by his collar.
“Let go of me!” he sputters, his face darkening to a garnet color.
I push him back so hard that he stumbles and falls over the chair he’d been sitting in only moments before. He lands hard on his ass on the linoleum floor. Suddenly, we are children again, me standing over him, finally fed up with his bullshit threats. Him, looking up at me, finally realizing he has underestimated my wrath. We’re both older now. We’re both bigger. But I am, by far, the more dangerous at this very moment.
“Don’t you ever lay so much as a finger on her again, or I swear to God I will end you, motherfucker! If you’re not out of this house in the next thirty seconds, we’ll call the police. And, if that doesn’t make you nervous, maybe my call to network stations in Chicago will. They’d be thrilled to break the story and run the video of the Kreisler gold medalist who stood by and watched his father die. Might get them thinking about what else you’re capable of.”
“You don’t have the balls,” he spits up at me from the floor. I squat down so that we are closer.
“No? Then try me. Go ahead. I’m waiting,” I inform him as I look at my watch. “Time starts now.”
At first, he simply sits there, furious and fuming silently. He’s testing me. But he should know better because last time he did this, I broke his arm.
“That’s twenty seconds left!” I inform him.
“Fine,” he fumes, getting to his feet. “Fine! But we are far from done with this conversation. I’m expecting my fair share, Mom. And you know how I can be if I don’t get what I’m expecting.”
“Oh, don’t worry about that, Jeremy,” she assures him breezily, as if confirming she’ll handle dinner reservations. “I’ll make sure you get exactly what you have coming to you.”
Her smile as she says this is chilling.
He’s cursing under his breath as he scrambles to his feet and ducks out the back door. When she’s sure he’s gone, my mother gets up and goes to the telephone. She dials information.
“Yes, I’d like the number for a locksmith in Owl Bridge, please.”